Monday, October 4, 2010

Mayahuana Lamps by Toyo Ito for Yamagiwa

Yamagiwa has supported Toyo Ito for his architectural lighting projects for many years yet the MAYUHANA is the very first collaboration for the product design development. A number of trials and errors were required in order to industrialize the MAYUHANA lamps, although the idea of collaboration launched more than a decade ago.

Today, there are a total of 14 types of MAYUHANA available from floor lamps to large scale pendant lamps. Toyo Ito has continued creating a variety of shapes and sizes of MAYUHANA lamps since its premiere of prototypes in Milan during the International Furniture and Lighting Fairs.

MAYUHANA series was created by reeling string around a mold the way thread is spun off a cocoon. The softness of the light reminiscent of a traditional Japanese portable paper lantern (Bonbori) is enhanced by the light coming through the double and triple shelters, and brings to mind the image of light depicted in the famous novel Junichiro Tanizaki's ''In Praise of Shadows''.

In the course of designing new additions, Ito mentioned that MAYUHANA does not refer specifically to Occidental nor Oriental design. It is both geometric and non-geometric. It is something he looks for in his architecture, where he is not restrained to existing boundaries